Joseph Haydn arrived in London on 1 January 1791 at the invitation of the impresario Johann Peter Salomon and gave a series of subscription concerts at the ‘Queen's Ancient Concert Rooms’ in Hanover Square from March until June. They were hugely successful and attended by all of fashionable London, almost certainly including Anne. After a summer in the country Haydn returned to London, where he was much lionized by society and had an affair with a widow, Mrs Rebecca Schroeter. Another concert season followed early in 1792 when he also started working on arrangements of Scottish and Welsh folksongs and it was at about this time that he met Anne. Perhaps he had attended one of her Thursdays, perhaps she had ventured to send him some of her poems, or more probably she encountered him when he first consulted John Hunter about the polyps in his nose and declined the offer of an operation. Could she have been introduced to him by his friend Domenico Corri, who had included Queen Mary's Lamentation in a collection of songs first published in 1783, as someone who was known to be skilful at writing words to music? Another possible contact was the well-known soprano, Harriett Abrams, who was also a composer and a friend of Haydn's, who performed with him in several concerts; she was probably also a friend of Anne's as in 1799 and 1803 she set two of Anne's ballads to music. What is certain is that Haydn and Anne collaborated on Dr Haydn's VI Original Canzonettas famously dedicated to Anne herself, as Mrs John Hunter, and published by Corri in 1794, during Haydn's second London visit.

The words for all six songs in the first set were written by Anne. All these poems and many others are included in Poems III, one of her manuscript volumes preserved in the Royal College of Surgeons. It is entitled Songs written for Music between the years 1762 and 1815–1818, which implies that she wrote the words to Haydn's music, however in the same volume she also refers to them as having been set to music by Dr Haydn.